SOMEBODY ASKED: WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DO?

CAROLYN MOREAU; Courant Staff WriterTHE HARTFORD COURANT

In the world of parochial school education, Fran Thompson is something of a whiz kid.

At 32, he is the new principal of St. Brigid School, a small Catholic elementary school in the heart of Elmwood. His explanation for his meteoric rise -- he went from rookie teacher to principal in just six years -- is simple.

"I was blessed," says Thompson, who still lives in Waterbury, where he grew up.

Margaret Josephs, a former teacher who taught Thompson when he was a teenager, sees him a little differently. He is one of those people with a gift for relating to others, she said.

Back when Thompson was 17 and a student in Josephs' English class at Waterbury's Sacred Heart High School, she remembers thinking that he would make a good teacher.

"He was a very creative individual, very outgoing and very collaborative," Josephs said.

Yet Thompson started out on a different path. He was a communications major at Marist College and then went to work for Channel 8 in New Haven in the advertising department.

He loved the work, but something was missing. He returned to his former English teacher for advice.

"She said to me 'What do you really want to do?"' Thompson remembered. "She asked me, 'When you leave work at the end of each day, do you think this is the best job you could ever have? Do you make a difference?"'

Put like that, the answer seemed obvious. Thompson left Channel 8 and went back to school to get his master's degree. He then was hired as an English teacher at his old high school. Many former teachers were now colleagues.

"To start calling them by their first names was a little bizarre," Thompson said.

It got even stranger after four years when Thompson was promoted to vice principal at Sacred Heart. "If the teachers got mad at me or disagreed with me, they would shake their fists and say 'We taught you,"' he said. "But it was mostly a joke."

Josephs said that Thompson was able to adjust because he is so good at relating to people. Students, parents, colleagues and superiors are quickly put at ease, she said.

One of Thompson's main goals for St. Brigid School is to provide more extracurricular activities for the students. Currently the school passion is basketball, but with a large gym and stage area, Thompson hopes to start a theater club and other sports groups.